Interview with Berdie Jones, musical experimentalist

Incredible things to happen at Churchkey performance

Madison musician Berdie Jones is making waves in the local scene. Jones just released his first studio album, titled Fuck You. The album boasts a large number of tracks, totaling to an impressive 46.

Jones’ sound is a unique blend of everything from elevator music to a symphony of chainsaws. Each track on Fuck You seems to harness tastes from all genres — polka, basement pop, funeral home rock, yodeling, garbage disposal, natural sound, classical violin, etc. You name it, Jones does it.

A handful of people have made contributions to the album. Everyone from Becky Blank to Cher’s ghost can be heard on these tracks. My personal favorite feature is Chance the Rapper gargling salt-water over the top of a flute medley for ten minutes.

The Dirty Bird was lucky enough to talk with Jones about his mastery of a variety of genres, his inspirations and future plans.

The concept behind Fuck You came to Jones while he was sitting on the toilet six months ago, he said. The repeated flush of the toilet became musical to him. From there, he knew he wanted to experiment with new types of sounds, he said.

“The flush flush of the toilet was so gentle, and so moving, it led me to believe I could make music out of anything.”

It was then on that Jones began weaving lots of everyday sounds into your typical song. During the writing process, he would see which sounds go best with which genre, he said.

“I heard my neighbor mowing his lawn, and I thought, holy mother fuck, this would be perfect in a death metal song,” Jones said. “So I fired that bitch up, recorded myself cutting some grass and then I laid that over the top of some Metallica-inspired metal music that I recorded on guitar, drums and bass only three hours earlier. There’s another sound I’ve been totally into, and it’s that sound that cats make when they vomit. It’s super good rhythm for rap, so I made some beats and inserted those sounds.”

This kind of experimentation can be seen throughout the album. Connecting this sort of work to a name took time, Jones said. Deciding what to call the album was difficult — the scope of this work is so large, and Jones knew that it had to be perfect. Finally, Jones rested on Fuck You, he said.

“I chose this because I knew I would gain more haters once people heard it,” Jones said. “I fear that people will think it’s just a bunch of messy and pointless nonsense or that it really isn’t music, so all I could think was fuck that and fuck you. I only hear beauty in the noise.”

There you have it, folks. Jones will be here in Madison at Churchkey Bar & Grill for a live performance, every single day next week.